Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings had an explosively successful Labor Day opening weekend, and that means it’s time to start getting pumped for the next (hopefully) big thing in the MCU: the Eternals! I have some doubts about the mainstream marketability of the Eternals, but nothing ventured, nothing gained—and the LEGO Group is not afraid to take risks on major Marvel Studios movies! A quartet of LEGO Eternals sets have been officially revealed on the LEGO Shop website and are coming our way in just a few weeks!

While longtime Marvel movie fans are pointing to the Guardians of the Galaxy as evidence that an “unknown” Marvel franchise can quickly gain massive worldwide popularity and fame with one film appearance, I’m not at all sure that GOTG is a good analog for the Eternals—at least, not from what we’ve seen just yet for the movie.

While Guardians of the Galaxy featured a talking raccoon and tree that were already well-tested with comic book fans and virtually guaranteed to be a hit with the masses, Eternals features, well… normal people in colored costumes that aren’t all that memorable. There’s not even a Goose the Cat to market here. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m highly unconvinced the mainstream is going to be clamoring for merchandise of these characters.

Regardless, LEGO has had the foresight to prep four Eternals LEGO sets, just in case the movie is an explosive success and fans do charge out to stores seeking merch. And the LEGO 76145 Eternals’ Aerial Assault set is the smallest and cheapest of the sets, with 133 pieces and a low price-point of $13.99.

Along with some sort of buildable winged Deviant, the set includes Minifigures of Ikaris and Sprite (the main character and the pint-sized Eternal kids seen most likely to like).

I’ve grown to quite like buildable LEGO creatures and monsters over the years because of the extra articulation builds get versus plain old minifigs, and this seems like a smart way to get what I suspect are the two most marketable Eternals into kids’ hands.

The LEGO 76154 Deviant Ambush! set gives fans Minifigures of LEGO Makkari, Thena and Gilgamesh, as well as a buildable Deviant insectoid-looking beast. We’re not getting one of these six-legged Deviants from Hasbro (unless they’re hiding it from us, which seems unlikely), so LEGO seems like the best way to get a toy representation of these monsters.

At 197 pieces and $29.99, I think this set will sell just fine to casual fans (even at over 15 cents per piece, not many flinch at 30 bucks for a LEGO set), and also help to flesh out the Eternals LEGO Minifigures lineup. Note that Gilgamesh is exclusive only to this set and does not appear anywhere in the other three.

76155 LEGO In Arishem’s Shadow gives us what I believe is a buildable LEGO Celestial (or otherwise something eerily reminiscent of one) based on its appearance and the blurb in the LEGO catalog. The red “Celestial leader”, Arishem, has ball-joints like the beloved Bionicle figures of the past and looks to be a fun and different type of build compared to what we’re used to in movie LEGO Marvel sets.

At 11″ tall, the Celestial (assuming it’s not a feint) isn’t exactly to-scale, but I think it’s still a suitably large size for this sort of brick-built toy. LEGO Ajak and Kingo minifigures are all exclusive to this set, along with Sersi and another Ikaris minifig included as well. LEGO 76155 contains 493 pieces and retails for $79.99. That’s over 16 cents per piece, which is shockingly high for a LEGO set for an untried franchise.

Finally, we have the “big daddy” of the LEGO Eternals sets lineup, the LEGO 76157 Rise of the Domo set. Druig and Phastos are only available in this set, and we also see Ikaris, Makkari, Thena and Sersi figures all reappear here.

Along with two buildable Deviants, we get the Eternals’ triangular spaceship, the Domo. The 1,040 piece set’s spaceship has a really cool and interesting playset interior, but also a $119.99 price-point that will potentially dissuade a lot of fans.

These LEGO Eternals movie sets are all posted now on the online LEGO Shop, although they’re only listed as “Coming Soon” for now and are not able to be pre-ordered. Officially, these will be released on October 1st, 2021–so even if pre-orders never open up at all, we’ll be able to purchase the sets in about three and a half weeks from the time this article is being published.

What do you think of this wave of Eternals movie LEGO sets, Marvel collectors? Are you keen to pick up any of these sets (or all of them if you want to have the complete set of Eternals minifigures)? How do you feel about that brick-built Celestial, and do you think these kits are going to be a hit or a miss as the holidays approach?